2012 - 'Year Of Living Dangerously' In Review

On January 8 of this year I posted my annual prediction article for this year – 2012 – The Year of Living Dangerously. Now it’s time to assess my complete and utter cluelessness when it comes to predicting things within a given time frame. Despite the fact that myself and everyone else acting like they know what lays ahead are proven wrong time and time again, we continue to make predictions about the future. It makes us feel like we have some control, when we don’t. The world is too complex, too big, too corrupt, too lost in theories and delusions, and too dependent upon too many leaders with too few brains to be able to predict what will happen next. This is the time of year when all the “experts” will be making their 2013 predictions. I haven’t seen too many of these experts going back and honestly assessing their 2012 predictions, which didn’t happen.

What I’ve learned is that “experts” usually have an agenda. Their predictions are designed to convince you to buy the stocks they recommend or purchase their newsletter. Many of these “experts” work for Wall Street, the corporate MSM, a political party or corporate interest. Half of the “experts” represent the status quo and want the masses to think everything is just fine and will steadily improve. The other half are fear mongers that want to scare you into buying their products with predictions of impending collapse at any moment. I like to read the predictions of a wide variety of pundits, bloggers, and so called journalists, while understanding they probably have an agenda.

Personally, I try to make my predictions based on the facts I observe and try to gather. My agenda is to prepare my family for whatever these facts tell me is likely to happen. My website is just a place for me to post my thoughts. I don’t depend upon it for a living and I have nothing to sell. That doesn’t mean that my biases, hopes, and desires do not color my predictions. As I reread my article yesterday, I found myself thinking, “when is this long winded gasbag going to actually make some predictions?” My article was supposed to make 2012 predictions but ended up trying to tie 2012 into the Fourth Turning Crisis paradigm. When I eventually got to the predictions, I realized that a monkey throwing darts could have done just as well. If I was one of those “experts”, I’d say that I wasn’t wrong, I was just early. Of course, that is a cop-out. Being early is the same as being wrong.

I’m more interested in why I was wrong. It seems I always underestimate the ability of sociopathic central bankers and their willingness to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions to benefit their oligarch masters. I always underestimate the rampant corruption that permeates Washington DC and the executive suites in mega-corporations across the land. And I always overestimate the intelligence, civic mindedness, and ability to understand math of the ignorant masses that pass for citizens in this country. It seems that issuing trillions of new debt to pay off trillions of bad debt, government sanctioned accounting fraud, mainstream media propaganda, government data manipulation and a populace blinded by mass delusion can stave off the inevitable consequences of an unsustainable economic system. But enough excuses. Let’s see how wrong I was:

All the episodes which will occur in 2012 will have at their core one of the three elements described by Strauss & Howe in 1997:Debt, Civic Decay, or Global Disorder.

This was a generic prediction. Those are a lot easier to take credit for as being right. Considering the country is about to go over the fiscal cliff, I’d say that debt has had a major impact in 2012. The disgusting political campaign, the anger over efforts to ban guns, urban violence, 20% of nation on food stamps, and real unemployment rate of 20% certainly prove that civic decay is accelerating. Uprisings in Egypt, Syria and across the Middle East intensified. Israel and Iran got closer to inevitable war. Japan and China are on the verge of conflict. The U.S. is still bogged down in Afghanistan and has failed miserably in efforts to democratize the Middle East. I’d say we have had a bit of global disorder.

At best, the excessive levels of sovereign debt will slow economic growth to zero or below in 2012. At worst, interest rates will soar as counties attempt to rollover their debt and rolling defaults across Europe will plunge the continent into a depression.

The best case scenario for European bankers and politicians came to pass in 2012. The GDP for the European Union went negative in the 3rd quarter of 2012. The southern European nations are experiencing depression level conditions with soaring unemployment, social unrest, and higher interest rates. But even Germany is experiencing a dramatic slowdown. The bankers continue to call the shots, with various debt schemes designed to keep the bankers whole, while throwing the people to the wolves. They have postponed the day of reckoning, but it is coming. They do not have a liquidity problem. They have a solvency problem. You cannot resolve a debt problem by creating more debt.

The truth that no one wants to acknowledge is the standard of living for every person in Europe, the United States and Japan will decline. The choice is whether the decline happens rapidly by accepting debt default and restructuring or methodically through central bank created inflation that devours the wealth of the middle class. Debt default would result in rich bankers losing vast sums of wealth and politicians accepting the consequences of their phony promises. Bankers and politicians will choose inflation.

This was an easy one. Bankers and politicians will never choose pain for themselves when they can shift it to the people. Bernanke and the rest of the world’s central bankers, in cooperation with their captured politicians, have chosen to inflate the debt away by printing money. They trust in the shallowness and ignorance of the masses to not notice as their standard of living steadily declines.

Controlling the distribution of data allows the oligarchs to falsify the true level of inflation and the corporate MSM dutifully spews the propaganda to the masses.

The European Union will not survive 2012 in its current form. Countries are already preparing for the dissolution. Politicians and bankers will lie and print until the day they pull the plug on the doomed Euro experiment.

I was 100% wrong in this assessment. The politicians and bankers are most certainly lying, but they have succeeded in keeping the EU intact. The dissolution would imperil too many bankers. Whether they can keep it intact through 2013 is another question.

The National Debt will be $16.5 trillion when the next president takes office in January 2013.

Barack Obama will be inaugurated on January 20, 2013. As of December 26, 2012 the National Debt stood at $16.34 trillion and according to Turbo Tax Timmy will hit the debt limit of $16.4 trillion on December 31. He will use accounting gimmicks and not fund government pensions to not exceed the limit, but the debt will continue to accumulate at a rate of $3.5 billion per day. The National Debt will be at approximately $16.47 trillion when Obama starts his 2nd term. Close enough for government work.

As debt servicing grows by the day, the economy losses steam. The excessive and increasing debt levels will lead to a renewed recession in 2012.

Despite the fact that the government and corporate media continue to report economic growth and a barely positive GDP, a recession did begin this past summer. Using a true level of inflation, GDP has been negative since 2006.

The horrific Christmas retail sales and declining corporate profits reveal the truth. Fourth quarter GDP will be negative and the government will eventually adjust the prior quarters lower. Excel spreadsheet models, fake inflation figures and seasonal adjustments cannot deny reality or the facts.

As foreclosures rise a self-reinforcing loop will develop. Home prices will fall as banks dump houses at lower prices, pushing millions more into a negative equity position. Home prices will fall another 5% to 10% in 2012, with a couple years to go before bottoming.

Another 100% wrong prediction. I again underestimated the willingness of corrupt Wall Street bankers, in cahoots with the Federal government, to fraudulently boost home prices by withholding foreclosures from the market and creating a fake housing shortage. The Feds have willingly used Fannie, Freddie and the FHA to guarantee more bad mortgage loans and put the taxpayer further on the hook for the billions of bad debt. Bennie has swooped in and bought up billions of toxic mortgage debt from the criminal Wall Street banks, while driving mortgage rates to record low levels. With this massive intervention, they have managed to increase home prices by 4% and increase home sales to levels 60% below the peak. Job well done.

The working age population will increase by 1.7 million, the number of people employed will go up by 1 million, but the official unemployment rate will drop to 7% as the BLS reveals that 10 million people decided to relax and leave the workforce. Surely I jest. The government manipulated unemployment rate will rise above 9%, while the real rate will surpass 25%.

I made what I thought was an outrageous prediction as an attempt at humor, but my outrageous prediction was closer to the truth. The working age population has grown by 3.7 million people, the number of employed people has gone up by only 2.7 million, 2.4 million people decided to kick back and leave the workforce, resulting in the unemployment rate “plunging” from 8.7% to 7.7%.

Measuring unemployment on par with the method used during the 1930s would put the level at 23% today. But you should trust the BLS. Why would they lie?

Ben Bernanke, Wall Street shysters and Barack Obama want you to be drawn in by the allure of short-term gains based on hopes of QE3. The stock market will be volatile in 2012 with stocks falling 20% when it becomes evident the country is going back into recession. Ben will try to ride to the rescue with QE3 as he buys up more toxic mortgage debt. Wall Street will do their usual touchdown dance celebration, but the bloom will fall off this rose fast, as quantitative easing has proven to be a failure in stimulating economic growth.Gridlock in Washington D.C., chaotic national conventions, and the implosion of Europe will contribute to the market finishing down by at least 15% for the year.

I hope you didn’t follow my stock market advice as it looks like I missed by only 25% or 30% with this prediction. It is amazing what zero interest rates for Wall Street banks, QE to infinity, high frequency trading supercomputers, and fake Wall Street earnings can do for a stock market. Since the recession has not been acknowledged and rigged corporate profits still sit near their peak, the stock market has continued to rise. I applaud the oligarchs for their ability to extract every last dime from the pockets of the middle class in their avaricious plundering of America. Bernie Madoff is proudly admiring their work from his prison cell.

The average price of oil will exceed $100 during 2012 resulting in the highest average gas price in history for American drivers. These high prices, along with various weather related issues will keep food prices elevated, with 5% or higher increases likely. This should spur a few more peasant revolutions around the globe.

I nailed this prediction. Americans paid the highest average price for a gallon of gasoline in history during 2012. Agricultural commodities like corn, wheat and soybeans soared by 7% to 20%, as the high oil prices and drought drove food prices higher. Meat prices will rise in 2013 as herds had to be thinned in 2012 because of the high feed costs. But don’t worry. The BLS will just adjust the food inflation away as they assume you switch from hamburger to cat food.

Gold will finish the year higher. As always, it will be volatile and manipulated by the powers that be. A drop below $1,500 in the beginning of the year is possible, but when Ben announces QE3, it will be off to the races. I expect gold to reach $1,900 by year end. Silver will be more volatile, but will likely reach $40 by year end.

Gold will finish the year higher for the twelfth consecutive year. It was volatile, with a high of $1,796 and a low of $1,527. It will finish the year in the mid $1,600s. Silver was equally volatile, but also up for the year. It ranged between $37.50 and $26. It will finish the year in the $30 range. The powers that be know that rising gold and silver prices reveal their deceitful inflationary master plan, so they use all of their market manipulative powers to suppress the prices of these metals. The higher our debt, the higher their prices will go. When the confidence game is revealed to be a Ponzi scheme, the prices of gold and silver will be unleashed.

Old line mall based retailers like Sears and J.C. Penney die a slow agonizing death as they stagger into the sunset like Montgomery Ward, Circuit City and thousands before them.

I was wrong about JC Penney. They are dying a fast agonizing death as the idiot savant from Apple has driven them straight into the ground, with sales plunging by 26% versus last year. It isn’t a matter of if, but when this employer of 159,000 declares bankruptcy. The “brilliant” (Jim Cramer says so) Eddie Lampert has Sears on a glide path to liquidation. This Christmas season will reveal these CEOs to be frauds.

The Occupy Movement will become more extreme with more disruptions of the economic system with less warning so the authorities don’t have time to prepare. I expect more cyber hacking into Wall Street, government, and media computer networks, causing disarray and uncertainty regarding financial information. I expect the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions to be overrun by protestors. The authorities will respond with excessive force, resulting in further violent protests in other cities.

Another 100% miss. The Occupy Movement splintered and petered out after being brutally dismantled by the armed mercenaries of the status quo. There were some cyber-attacks, but they caused minimal disruption. The masses are satiated with their techno-gadgets and reality TV shows. No one protested. No one cared.

The Federal government grows ever more panicked by the knowledge that its Ponzi scheme economy is going to collapse. This is why passage of the NDAA and the future passage of SOPA are so important to them. Imprisonment of citizens without charge and shutting down the only remaining means of truth – the Internet – are essential to retaining their power and control over the masses. At the same time, gun sales are at record levels. Critical thinking Americans can see the writing on the wall and no longer trust corrupt politicians of either party. Arming yourself and buying physical gold and silver is a prudent act in today’s world.

The outrage over SOPA, led by the alternative online media, stopped it from being passed. The tyrants continue their efforts to suppress free speech on the internet, as Facebook shuts down pages that do not conform to the corporate fascist government agenda. Gun sales are off the charts, as critical thinking people no longer trust the corrupt government. Physical gold and silver sales are soaring as critical thinking people no longer trust our corrupt economic system.

The ruling elite hand selected puppets for the 2012 presidential election are Obama and Romney. They are virtually interchangeable and both are acceptable to the Wall Street oligarchs. The monkey wrench in the gears is Ron Paul. He will run as a 3rd Party candidate and focus a light on the crony capitalism that passes for free markets in America today. He will be vilified by both parties and their media mouthpieces, but if he gains traction I fear an unfortunate accident will befall him. Either way, he will have a dramatic impact on the debate and the outcome of the 2012 election.

With this prediction I allowed my hope to overcome reason. The oligarchs are too powerful. Ron Paul’s grassroots campaign made the oligarchs extremely uncomfortable. He drew huge crowds of young people on college campuses across the country. His message of liberty and freedom resonated with millions, but he was no match for the billionaires that call the shots in this country. He was silenced by the Republican establishment and chose not to run as a 3rd party candidate. The puppet on the left won the election. The puppet on the right retreated to one of his six mansions. Ron Paul rode off into the sunset knowing he gave it his best shot.

It seems more likely by the day that someone will do something stupid in or around Iran and the Persian Gulf will explode into a virtual hell on earth. The unintended consequences of such a development will far outweigh the intended consequences. The revolutions, protests, and brewing civil wars in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Iraq will flare up even if Iran doesn’t explode into a shooting war. The tensions in the Middle East will keep oil prices above $100, despite a world plunging into recession.

The showdown between Israel and Iran did not happen in 2012, despite increasingly angry rhetoric. The stealth war with Iran began, as economic sanctions and cyber warfare have begun to destroy their economy and impoverish their people. Revolutions, riots, protests and civil war spread across the Middle East throughout 2012 resulting in high oil prices and a worldwide economic contraction which is picking up speed as 2012 comes to a conclusion.

China’s hard landing will arrive in 2012. Keynesianism on steroids has failed as they’ve built more than enough vacant malls, vacant cities, vacant condo towers, and bridges to nowhere. Property prices will plunge, exports will decline, and peasants will revolt as food and energy prices push them over the edge.

China has come in for a hard landing. With a government more corrupt than even ours, their reported economic data would make a BLS drone blush with pride. Property prices are falling. Exports are falling. But somehow they report economic growth of 7%. And the MSM dutifully reports this gibberish as truth. Unrest and protests are a daily occurrence in China, but they are immediately crushed. The Chinese authorities continue to clamp down on the internet and media. China’s economic system is a rotting Keynesian nightmare.

I also raised the generic possibilities of earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics and terrorist attacks. I noted that a terrorist attack in a public venue might cause a government over-reaction. Even though the slaughter of young school children by a deranged mental defective doesn’t constitute a terrorist attack, the reaction by government officials and their liberal control freak allies in the mainstream media are exactly what I feared. Every tragedy is used to gain more control over our lives and take away our Constitutional rights in the name of safety and security. The ignorant masses willingly give up their freedom and liberty, believing their Orwellian government protectors will look out for them. As we enter 2013, time grows shorter. The power hungry psychopaths continue to pillage and plunder. Our unsustainable economic system struggles under the weight of debt, despair and delusion as the endgame approaches. The willfully ignorant populace is lost in their techno-narcissistic dream world.

Will 2013 be the year it all collapses in a flaming heap of rubble? I don’t know. Maybe you should ask an “expert”.

It guarantees to be an interesting year. I’ll be hiring Bonzo chimp to help me make my 2013 predictions in the next week or so.

In the days immediately following the attacks, there were many memorials and vigils around the world. In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to “get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed.

Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”

Resulting in duct taping the voice of Americans, a crime scene yellow ribbon around those who attempt to assemble, creation of the DHS which transformed the USA into a land quite similar to Gaza strip.

Thanks... Not 'HATIN' here (or elsewhere)... I just believe in cutting thru all the bullshit (if you're TRULY interested in a solution)... If you're not interested in the truth, then it's all just a bunch of mental masturbation...

Sometimes (on this site), when I point an accusatory finger towards the jewish power control heirarchy, I get the 'USUAL SUSPECT' retaliatory comments from idiots who ask me why I'm not out there warming up the ovens, or spraypainting swastikas on synagogues...

I just have to laugh...

If you look more closely... I'm trying to PREVENT that from happening... IOW ~ It's a way for me to say [to the jews]... "You'd better check yourself before you wreck yourself"... History is full of examples where an overwhelming minority wiggled their way into positions of power & created a situation of utter despotism for the 99%...

It usually ends bad [for them]... It won't be by the hand of francis_sawyer that that occurs [oe when the moment arrives]... It'll be by their own hand that they unavoidably called it into being by their own careless & relentless foray towards positions of power & control & wind up facing a mob of people FAR MORE aggressive & FAR LESS TOLERANT than francis_sawyer ever was or will be... For the harder you grasp sand, the quicker it slips from your fingers...

Yeah, same here. Thing is, it's right in front of us, happening by deception - always. The scale of rigging and control becomes so large it becomes overt so the deception fails, as it now is.

Even at zh there are people who are afraid they might come-off sounding a bit 'unacceptable', not intellectually high-brow enough. There are people who actually pursue 'popularity' with some imaginary 'in-crowd' clique. If you mean what you say above that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

I'd like to see a peaceful world of BALANCE... I suspect that that is an utterly naive request...

BALANCE doesn't mean a bunch of centrally controlled fairies sitting together holding hands & singing kumbaya... THERE IS ALWAYS CONFLICT IN NATURE... [all you need to do is sing "The Farmer in the Dell" to yourself to understand that]...

I'm OK with the sort of conflict that NATURE pits vs. OTHER NATURE... It's the ultimate FIGHT CLUB...

I despise the sort of artificial conflict that MAN imposes upon fellow MAN [as well as the erregious, almost distainful attitude that MAN imposes on NATURE itself]... In this moment ~ THAT is the challenge that humanity faces... I have NO DOUBT that nature itself will win that battle... But what a wasted effort if man doesn't endeavor to achieve a truce...

If it were francis_sawyer at the reigns, that's the path I'd take [& encourage others to follow ~ as I'm trying to do here]... Regretfully ~ I have little say in the matter... & as we stand, the captain(s) at the wheel are the (in no particular order):

I'll stop here so that all the USUAL JUNKERS can have a stab & help all you readers to truthfully understand just how idiotic, inflammatory, & ridiculous the thoughts of francis_sawyer are... [Without ever bothering to offer a valid defense save for the casual & convenient click of a down arrow]...

The USA PATRIOT Act
Legislation Rushed Into Law in the Wake of 9/11/01

The USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) was signed into law on October 26, 2001. The text of the bill is here.

The law was submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration on September 24th, just 13 days after the attack. Two of the Senators who attempted to slow passage of the bill, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, were targeted with letters containing weaponized anthrax delivered to their offices on October 9. Russ Feingold was the only member of the Senate to vote against it. 1

Overview

The Campaign Committee of UNITE FOR PEACE provided the following brief rundown on the potential impact of the act on freedoms:

Freedom of Association: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigations.

Freedom of Information: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.

Freedom of Speech: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to terror investigations.

Right to Legal Representation: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to US citizens accused of crimes.

Freedom from Unreasonable Searches: Government may search and seize papers and effects owned by citizens without probable cause to assist terror investigations.

Right to a Speedy and Public Trial: Government may jail anyone indefinitely without a trial, including US citizens.

Right to Liberty: Anyone may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

A More Detailed Look

The American Civil Liberties Union gives a more detailed description of the provisions of the act.

Secret Searches: The USA PATRIOT Act expands the ability of the government to use so called "sneak and peek" and "black bag" secret searches. These searches, depending on the target, require either no notification at all of the person being searched, or delay notification until after the search has occurred. This means that physical searches of our homes, cars, computers, workplaces and reading materials can be conducted without our knowledge. These provisions apply both in anti-terrorism investigations and routine criminal investigations. aclu.org

Government Surveillance: The USA PATRIOT Act minimizes the power of the courts to prevent law enforcement authorities from illegally abusing certain types of telephone and Internet surveillance in both anti-terrorism investigations and run-of-the-mill criminal investigations of American citizens. Law enforcement officials have the power to investigate American citizens for criminal matters without establishing probable cause if they designate that the investigation is for "intelligence purposes." The Director of Central Intelligence also has broad authority to identify individuals as targets for intelligence surveillance, placing the CIA firmly back in the business of spying on Americans.

Privacy: The USA PATRIOT Act granted the FBI -- and, under new information sharing provisions, many other law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- broad access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health, library and student records with only the most minimal judicial oversight. The court must issue a subpoena whenever the FBI states that it is for an investigation to protect against international terrorism. The recipient of the subpoena is prohibited from telling anyone that the FBI has asked for the information. Now the FBI can get the entire database of a credit card company or the records of everyone who has used a certain public library. It can obtain information on everyone registered at a particular hotel, hospital, or university. It does not need to show probable cause that a crime is, has been, or will be committed.

Dissent/Free Speech: The USA PATRIOT Act has the very real potential to greatly chill constitutionally protected speech in its overbroad redefinition of "domestic terrorism." The new definition is so vague that it could allow the government to designate lawful advocacy groups, like Greenpeace and Operation Rescue, as terrorist groups and subject them to invasive surveillance, wiretapping, harassment and then criminally penalize them for protected political advocacy.

Bill of Rights for Non-Citizens: The USA PATRIOT Act permits the Attorney General to incarcerate or detain non-citizens based on mere suspicion and to deny re-admission to the US of non-citizens (including legal, long-term permanent residents) for engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment.

If we don’t pass a solution for the Fiscal Cliff, our US Government will immediately Crash & Burn. Just think about the Central Planning Chaos Theory. Everything is just bread & circus with a twist of distortion.

Today's fear amounts to a public servant official shaking his/her magic 8-ball.

OR, you could do something useful like contribute ideas to survive and prosper during the coming dark days. For those of us in the majority who prefer NOT to slash our wrists in advance of the financapocolypse.

Not yet, but thanks for asking. :)Your little world is gathering a collision course. Banking transaction no longer sells advertisement for a cowboy wearing a black/white rodeo hat. Your 10 seconds of time has expired.

Paddings 2 -5 year downsizing program to save the burnt book won’t save you.. Relying on derivatives acceleration will never clear your books balance due. You need to cut off the enabler by default. We can repeat history within 30 minutes. Debt obligation becomes Kaboom, treaties are signed and NGO rebuilding is funded to prop up GDP.

So, do you think your sick mind can carry out this mission to save your weak BIS obligations?

Oh yes, prepare and prosper. You have your gold and silver, your year of food supply, the ammo and the lookouts. What are you preparing for? The collapse of the currency? Or the take over of your country by a global agenda? If it is the latter, you'll be left without a pot to piss in.

This is not a country where you can hunker down in your fish bowl and wait it out. This agenda is to transfer your wealth and take over your country's resources - there is NO PLACE TO HIDE.

Inventory of every inch of America is taking place under Agenda 21 non-gov agencies, coming in and offering small towns who are ~broke~bankrupt~ and offering grants if they take part in this "nonbinding" agreement.

End justifies the means with these people. They have no sympathy for the plight of Americans. They have no sympathy for the plight of the starving/tortured/imprisoned. They only care about one thing - taking what you have and making it theirs.

Being taxed out of the ability to survive is just around the corner. It's an agenda. It is planned. There may be delays but just until the citizens back off and shut up, then it will resume.

Doomed? Goddamn right. the Main Stream Media is the enemy. Boycott something. Get out there and take a look around. History has the proof that what I write is true. This is a coupe d tat...go to your local taverns and churches and meet with your community members and share information. Americans will have no place to run if this succeeds.

Apparently, you don’t understand currency wars & who will become the next collective figure to manage global currency by control of new global carbon taxes. Have a look at who is levering a BRICS deal!

When our country decided to pair with the Japan, Chinese banking loan accounts, certain terms & conditions were needed to borrow that money. Mostly, geopolitical cultural changes were required to continue receiving the loan extensions to prop up our fake economy. Several past ME proxy wars have had to do with sovereign countries moving off the petrodollar program. BRICS is consorting with Bernanke by selling serf safety relations amongst the peasants by purchasing to preserve things as the seem is glued. Just another set a bullshit to be exposed.

Anyone want to take a crack at what percent of this ordnance actually in the area these represent? How about in the Puget Sound region (Lewis/McChord) or any of the other regions with active bases? What is the ordnance leakage rate actually? If I were Obongwater I would be wondering how pissed off is the rank and file with me really? The officer corps? Can Bongwater actually command in time of crisis? Can Smilin' Joe? Ruh rOH...

What I don't get is, how the fuck is DavidPierre always at the ready anytime Quinn posts? Same as 4th Stooging and AnAnonymous........as soon as the post goes up, DING DING DING DING there's the response. Do they set their 'You've got mail' alert or WHAT?

SINGAPORE — A 23-year-old Indian woman ( a medical student) who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus in New Delhi died Saturday at a Singapore hospital. The woman's horrific ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protections against widespread sexual violence, and her death was expected to intensify public demands for action by the Indian government.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

traditionally in many Indian cities, the public space is predominately men - as more women transition into roles of cultural note, and increasingly earn their own living, there will be more "punishment" for transgressing the "norms" - rape is a traditional punishment for these "crimes" globally.

The woman and a male friend were traveling in a public bus after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who took turns raping her. They also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into her body resulting in severe organ damage. Both of them were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

"Every tragedy is used to gain more control over our lives and take away our Constitutional rights in the name of safety and security."

Clearly, one should question to what degree were those "tragedies" false flag attacks, or inside jobs, done by those who benefit from taking away other people's rights, in order to be able to continue to defraud and rob those people with impunity? ... In light of the previous comments here, my views on 9/11 events have been developing since the Spring of 2006, when I first began paying attention, rather than deliberately ignoring 9/11/2001 as much as I could, which is what I felt like doing for the first five years after it happened ...

One can not understand America's economic problems unless one understands that 9/11 has, so far, been a very SUCCESSFUL inside job, false flag attack. Of course, understanding that is quite a horrible thing to have to go through, since that makes 9/11 Truth become many orders of magnitude WORSE than the official story about 9/11! In my opinion, anyone who thinks anything about the global financial system SHOULD include an awareness of the obvious FACTS that 9/11 MUST have been controlled demolition events, which then MUST mean that those were inside job, false flag attacks, BECAUSE, then everything those events symbolized, such as the destruction of the leading symbols of the American economic system, were DELIBERATELY done by the people who dominated and controlled that system! The social polarization that has driven appears to be irreconcilable!

Most political events taking place for Centuries, as well as those events taking place now, were primarily about the agenda to consolidate the global hegemony over the privatized power to make "money" out of nothing, as debts, while controlling governments to force everyone else to accept that runaway triumphant fraud.

The entire system is LIES BACKED BY VIOLENCE, and the ONLY thing that can be surely predicted about the future is that there will be MORE OF THAT. The established systems are a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut. They will continue to roll, and probably turn most people into road kill. The world IS controlled by the people who were the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence. That system has been growing at an exponential rate for millennia, with each significant new event becoming worse than the previous ones, with an apparent doubling of how bad those events were becoming more obviously manifested. The path we are on is towards genocidal wars, along with democidal martial law. That appears IMPERATIVE because the established fundamental financial system, that already dominates the world, IS based on FRAUD, BACKED BY FORCE. It can not back off, it can only go for broke, to attempt to consolidate a total world government under that system ... ??? ...

Predicting the future extrapolates previous trends, which requires one to consider to what degree are those established trends going to be amplified and interact ... I can not see how anyone can reasonably predict the future without including the most important social facts, which are the control over the money supply, and what it takes to maintain that control, which becomes an extremely intense question when the money supply has become a global privatized electronic fiat money made out of nothing as debts, which is backed up by sovereign powers, with weapons of mass destruction.

The international banksters ARE collectively a group of trillionaire mass murderers. THEIR system was able to stage 9/11 events as a false flag attack. HOWEVER, nothing about recognizing that "9/11 Truth" changes those facts. There are STILL trillionaire mass murderers, going for broke to consolidate their global systems.

Although I can sympathize with people who deliberately ignore 9/11 Truth, and refuse to take the time to learn enough about that to come to the only possible logical conclusions, which are overwhelmingly supported by an abundance of evidence and arguments, which have been presented by an army of independent researchers, BECAUSE those conclusions PROVE IRRECONCILABLE SOCIAL POLARIZATION ... Of course, I WISH that was not the case, and therefore, I sympathize with those people who refuse to face those facts. However, any serious efforts to understand the financial future that do not include the realization that 9/11 was an inside job, false flag attack, which deliberately symbolized the destruction of American economic symbols, in an on-going systematic campaign to destroy its democratic republic, FAIL to come to terms with the most important parameters of what is really happening ... SinceIRRECONCILABLE SOCIAL POLARIZATION can not befixed by anything within its frame of reference .... there is no doubt that, one way or another, sooner or later, we are going to be DRIVEN through paradigm changes, which are even more unpredictable than anything happening within the old paradigms!

Get over 911!! Life is like a revolving hotel door. You can enter and experience life, or depart the hotel with fond memories. The dead idiots generally will be the folks who ran a red light, as they left the hotel without paying the bill.

Confronting the truth about 9/11 is crucial, just as it is crucial to realize that the demoralization, displacement, and dispossession of white Europeans is a matter of policy, obfuscated by misinformation and ideological fog "multiculturalism", "anti-racism" etc.)

Let me see if I got this. The stock market has a lot of pension money invested in it. As long as people look at their 401ks and retirement and see that that is still ok they are not likely to listen to what is really happening. So if the FED banksters can keep the levels around DOW 13,000 and S&P 1400 the NWO will be able to implement Stazi (sp) tactics, confiscate guns and pull off a few false flags. Then they can blame whatever country and use Al-kida to attack the US (like with 911 only bigger). And now this year the talking heads of mainstream media will be getting their incomes pinched by austerity TV and Internet will become ever more unreal. Existing media personalities will be replaced by more control freaks. Pharmaceutical pipelines will become disrupted. Health services will not be available and a food shortage will be announced. Power failures will become more prevailent and the drought will be used as a cover for more bankster thefts. Gasoline prices will spike just before the next disaster.

Easy to predict. Because this IS a prison planet. There are about a dozen people running it (close family members and proteges have taken over for those that have died off, so as to continue the game). They are all in big financial institutions (such as the BofE) and are all on the boards of national and international mental health organizations (which includes Big Pharma and the major injection of psychotrobic drugs into the civilization). Luckily, they failed at getting the needed legislation into countries via control of mental health organizations... the objective was to be able to arrest and hold people and use lobotomies and shock treatment to utterly destroy any attackers or whistle blowers. The "Alaska Bill" or "Siberian Bill" almost got passed in the USA but was luckily defeated (opponents of the oligarchy would've been arrested and taken to Alaska, institutionalized and then lobotomized or shocked to the point of zero threat. An "incredible" is something that allows you to do something blatantly and fully out in the open. It is so incredible no one would ever believe it (911 is an example, WMD is another). The above is quite incredible for your average person to believe. They failed in their mission to control via mental health, but they did succeed financially by getting every major country in debt to them, bankrupting them so that they could control the politics within each country. But then the next thing is even more incredible... there are aliens here, have been for a very long time, and THEY are the top of the command chain... not the international bankers, power elite, oligarchy or whatever you want to call them. Why are they doing this? There really isn't a strong reason or purpose. It has been going on for so long, they have been doing it here and on other planets that it has just become a habit. They are seeking total control so that they have... total control. There is no other goal in sight than that. It is an old old game. The people of Earth will never believe this, which is why it is happening right out in the open. People need an answer for the things being done so that they can make sense of it all. Their answer is... "so many of our leaders and politicians are either just plain stupid or they are corrupt and/or lazy, and they have bad judgement and observational power and thus keep making policy mistakes". This allows them to put their head down on the pillow at nite. But... that is a wrong answer. A high school student has more native ability and common sense to run our economy and government better than the existing scene. So what does that tell you?

Greenspan, Bernanke, IMF, BIS, presidents, Congress people, etc. are not in the know at all. They are all pawns, taking their orders from down the command channel, believing that they are doing the right thing. The aliens are among us but not playing a role or in the publc eye.

By the way, a couple of these international bankers were Cecil King and Lord Emsley Carr. Both dead and have been replaced by who knows who.

What you say might be metaphorically true? However, there is nothing in the way of real evidence that can provide any way to determine what might be literally true, since there is no agreement possible about what the word "alien" in that context means.

That 9/11 was steel frame buildings suddenly collapsing is proven by evidence, and can be understood as a huge lie by common sense physics. That banksters can make "money" out of nothing is also obviously a literal social fact.

Whatever "aliens" might be, or whether those are behind the scenes, is not possible to prove, and not even possible to understand according to any common sense or science that I am aware of.

I do not find it necessary to believe in "aliens" ... although I could not prove that anything so strange could not exist.

Here is a little more of my kind of bla, bla, blah about "aliens" provoked by your post alfbell, which I mention because one can find lots of other people who assert similar things to what you have.

From a metaphorical perspective, the humans who have evolved to become the "top carnivores" inside the overall human ecology appear to be "aliens" to the masses of people that are their prey. Metaphorically speaking, those "aliens" are predators, that are devolving into parasites. Their values are so different than the values of the people whom they prey upon that they may seem like "aliens" to each other.

I have collected some of this wild stuff, which I do not automatically dismiss, but rather struggle to attempt to assign any meaning to, in this thread: Solar Flare Co-incidences? Attempting to figure out whether any "aliens" are real requires that one first have some theory about how "aliens" could exist, inside of an understanding of the world that makes those kinds of "aliens" possible. My view is that human beings do NOT understand how the world works, and those who pretend they do are lying. ... We do NOT understand how the Sun works, and from that follows how we must necessarily fail to understand practically everything else, since the Sun was the source of energy for more than 99% of everything else we do!

There are wildly different ideas about what "aliens" may be ... Some suggest the theory that "aliens" are beings that come fromother dimensions. There is no doubt that there are force fields resonating, and there is no doubt that there are way more things which exist, that are not visible, than things which exist, that are visible.

We only discovered the nature of electromagnetic energy, and have become able to detect that, and to use that, relatively recently. The path of those developments has been mathematics, then mathematical physics, both of which were developed many decades BEFORE there was any practical applications of those mental breakthroughs. It is plausible that there are still other forms of energy, which we do not understand, and can not use in any practical ways, but which nevertheless still exist and are real (although mostly invisible to most of us now.) BREAKTHROUGHS in basic science could enable us to understand the possible reality of different kinds of "aliens" that we can not possibly understand now. DIFFERENT KINDS OF BASIC BREAKTHROUGHS could lead to understanding different kinds of aliens.

One kind of "alien" becomes somewhat similar to the historical concepts of angels and demons, i.e. those exist in other dimensions, which we do not understand anything about, in any practical way, although those may well exist. That kind of "alien" is far different than the ExtraTerrestrial "aliens" that physically exist, in our world, like us, but which were able to somehow travel through time and space to visit our planet. That kind of ET alien must also have access to technologies which are not understood at all. There might even be some kind of overlapping between technologies that allow practical travel from star to star, and which enable travelling through different dimensions ??? Those different kinds of "aliens" are not mutually exclusive. They may both "exist," and, if so, then there are certainly many different kinds of either of those different kinds of "aliens."

An enormous problem with the absence of real evidence about "aliens" arises with both of those possible basic kinds, which is that IF there was any real evidence, then there is no doubt that the people who had that evidence would suppress it, in order to take advantage of their knowledge, while keeping other people ignorant. Therefore, the absence of evidence about "aliens" does not prove they do not exist, since it is entirely plausible that any such real evidence would be kept secret.

My current OPINION is that most "aliens" are mostly the same as the historical "demons." They do not physically exist they way we do, with our material bodies, however, they are energy patterns, on other possible dimensions of energy fields, which are partially organized, in their realms, and they may interact with us in our domain. That kind of alien is then analogous to the notions about chreodes, presented by people like Rupert Sheldrake. EVERY living thing is surrounded and interpentrated by resonant energy fields, on multiple dimensions. Thus, ALL living beings have their own associated "spirits," in the sense of some organized energy fields that they resonate with.

Different human beings have relatively different bodies and brains, which corresponds to the different energy fields, or spirits, that they resonate with. Just as every other living thing evolves in a continuous context of energy fields, so too, different human beings evolved different spirits, which their brains and bodies resonate with.

The people who became the top carnivores in the human ecology, the top predator/parasites, i.e., the banksters and their buddies, are surrounded by "spirits" which are "alien" to those which most of their preyed upon people resonate with. That kind of notion about "aliens" is then both metaphorically and literally true. It would have both an evolutionary and historical reality, which would have developed.

Certain human populations became more and more those who act like the top carnivores inside the overall human ecology, while other human populations became more like the herbivores. The "spirits" that surround those kinds of people have become very different. Those who are the topmost predator/parasites metaphorically seem like evil aliens or demons to other people who act like the productive who get preyed upon.

Of course, nothing I have said above discounts that it MIGHT also be possible that extraterrestrial kinds of "aliens," from other star systems, MIGHT also visit Earth, and they MIGHT have influenced life here, including influenced the evolution of human beings in the past.

As I said, I am an agnostic about "aliens." I have no first-hand knowledge whatsoever about any of that. I have never seen a UFO, and certainly never seen any "aliens" of any kind whatsoever. To me, everything regarding this is just more stories, told by other people, and therefore, I can only attempt to sift through those stories, while trying to shift gears to decide to what degree those other people were lying, when they told their stories.

... As I said in my first reply above, the word "alien" has no agreed upon meaning. Thus, the discussion of the "reality" about them is practically impossible to engage in meaningfully, at the present time. Human beings are way, way to ignorant about the world around them! Since we do NOT understand how the Sun works, and the mainstream astronomers who claim they do can be proven to be lying, all the rest of our understanding with respect to almost everything important also falls apart! Since we do not understand even the most important things, like our own Sun, therefore, how can we possibly understand whatever "aliens" may be?

As I said, my OPINION is that what people refer to as the "aliens," that control the human beings who are the ruling elites, are primarily the same as the historical "demons" that existed in other dimension, which are "real" in the sense that other dimensions of resonating energy fields are "real." Thus, BOTH the metaphorical and literal MIGHT overlap to some degree ... HOWEVER, I have not got anything to back that OPINION up but a whole bunch of other people's stories ... with no first-hand knowledge, and NO EVIDENCE!!!

Obviously, any PROVEN reality regarding any aliens (that was not just another false flag hoax, which is more probable) would CHANGE the past, and therefore, CHANGE THE FUTURE!!! Predictions of the future that could meaningfully integrate good information about any kinds of real "aliens" would obviously become radically different than predictions that did not do that, or could not do that!

One of the paradoxical aspects of futurology is the general trend for that to be like insurance. Insurance is a HUGE influence: one of the pillars of the financial systems. In the world of insurance, there tends to be a correlation between the very rare, and that which can have the most significant impact. Things like Earth being hit by a significant solar flare, or being obviously visited by real aliens, are WAY OUT THERE ... Those are very rare, and apparently impossible to predict, since we do not understand the basics. But nevertheless, they would be drastic GAME CHANGERS, which would wipe out the frame of reference that we were using in all of our other more normal predictions!

Quinn, You have submitted some really bad articles to ZH in the past. You have had some good ones though. As for predictions, your misses were caused by not factoring in 'inertia'. No matter how messed up some things are they will keep going just because of inertia for a lot longer than would seem possible. The fourth turn is a long curve not a sharp 90.

Everything keys of "the war." that's the only prediction that matters...going on year 12 now. and yet again "we will simply ignore it" even though i have based the bulk of my predictions simply on the inability of Government to turn "the war machine off" and its rather striking ability to still "pay for that fact." President Obama is soon to be "President 3 and 0" as the Assad regime fails. What happens then is anyone's guess...but given the mantra "Forward" that is my guess as to where all this...and you and me...are headed. I think soon to be Secretary of State Kerry is a VERY powerful choice for "the war side." We're talking former Navy Seal here..."everyone get yer gun" Government folks. Senator McCain obviously wants Chuck Hagel for Defense...i have no clue about the possibilities for him making it but the current one is over-qualified in my view...though interestingly standing outside the "war machine ethos" in many ways. Next up will be Treasury...has anyone heard of any names? I know I haven't. Clearly it won't be Jamie Dimon! And this is happening in the next few weeks folks! What else? Oh, "the market." If "Forward" is the answer then so it is with Mr. Market. Unless and until there is a fundamental "error message" of some sort then I really don't see why anyone is buying into the end of that world....YET.

Great article Jim... Predictions are tough these days as nobody has a clue as to how low they will stoop to cover up their constant looting,lies and deception. If you had asked me in 2008 how much money would be stolen, I would have said maybe 3 trillion. Well here we are 4 years later and 20 Trillion dollars deeper into the abyss. Remember a ponzi scheme can look as good as they want to make it look just as long as the FED can keep printing and covering up the greatest heist in world history...

Pay attention ZH, the above was just a dry run for the gun-grab thats coming.

Its LOL when its OWS, summat tells me you wont be laughing when those tactics are used against you.

"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.

Another prescient blockbuster, Jim, written as usual in the vein of a Tom Paine. And the crowd, likewise, is responding! Thank you. I await with anticipation your 2013 predictions.

The world’s economy is increasingly unstable and at risk, in a process of ruination, because a purchased U.S. Congress working solely for the international bankers who control the world’s reserve currency now operates as a buffer between the bankers and the will of the people.

With the death of representative government and its checks and balances, the FED cartel of private international bankers now controls the U.S. government’s borrowing and interest rates, creating booms and busts at will to the point that even the purchase of a man’s house or his savings nest egg have become unsafe investment risks.The Fed and its policies have impoverished the American people. Not only that, our country is now bankrupt.

He who combines the rule of money with the rule of the public press and academia controls the nation.

The International Bankers have never been more powerful. Freedom has never been weaker. Yet the International Bankers have never been weaker; freedom has never been stronger. Could it be change is in the air?

1. A certified moron will be elected to high office in a major country.

2. Millions of families will have their homes stolen and will go quietly and live in their cars

3. Millions of American gun owners will posture and threaten bankers and politicians but not one will act

4. Over 50 million children under the age of two will die of protein deficiency.

5. Race riots will break out in major US and European cities. Lethal force will be used indiscriminately. Flames will reach more than 100' into the skies.

6. A group that is not supposed to have a nuclear weapon will get one; it will not, unfortunately, be used where it would do the most good.

7. Over 100 new drugs will be patented and every one will make people who take them sicker than before, creating a need for more new drugs.

8. Someone will finally, at long last, shut Ann Coulter's mouth permanently and Rush Limbaugh will choke to death on aspirated feces.

9. A major asteroid will be detected heading directly for earth; millions will see the face of Jesus on the asteroid.

10. A major infrastructure failure will occur in the US that will result in thousands of deaths. The government will pass laws outlawing such catastrophes. A minor official will be found responsible and will be sent to jail for a year.